Smart farms

: 08 April 2022; Hits: 8408

Timely planting & climate appropriate seeds help improve arid farmer yields

Farmers in semi arid areas, knocked by weather patterns are learning new techniques to beat the weather vagaries like planting before the rains start and buying seeds suited for their climate. The techniques which have at times failed remain their only option at the moment.

James Mativo from Makaveti Village in Kyanzasu sub-location in Machakos County is one such farmer. He proudly displays a healthy crop, with green maize ripe for plucking to recent visitors. “I planted just before the rain season began, to ensure that the crop would sprout when the rains came,” he explained.

For many farmers in the semi-arid Eastern Province in Kenya, preparing fields ahead of the rains is not enough to guarantee a good harvest. Having the right seed is vital too. Mativo buys certified seed, suited to the area’s climate, from Dryland Seed Company in Machakos town. “For these dryland varieties, the first rains are very important,” explains Peter Mutua, a Dryland agronomist. “It allows the farmers to take full advantage of this scarce resource from germination. This is particularly important as most farmers grow maize under rainfed conditions in Kenya, even in the semi-arid areas.”

Just as a relay is a team effort, so is the process of delivering quality seed to farmers. It takes many people, working together, to ensure that farmers get the best seed suited for the climatic conditions in their locales. Take the case of drought tolerant maize varieties: the process starts with breeders who develop the germplasm and share it with research partners, who pass the baton to the seed companies, who produce large quantities of the seed, which smaller-scale farmers buy from the seed companies. The companies cross-pollinate sources of desirable traits to develop maize varieties relevant for the farmers. Often they start with sources from public research organizations like the CIMMYT.

“We try to improve the existing varieties and come up with varieties that are better than those in the market,” says Peter Setimela, a CIMMYT maize breeder. “With climate change, varieties developed 20 years ago no longer suit the changing environment” Breeders working under the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Initiative led by CIMMYT have developed varieties known as the Kenya Dryland Varieties (KDV) series. KDV 1 – 6 varieties were released to farmers by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), as well as the companies Freschco and Dryland Seed. The fourth variety of the series is the one now growing on Mativo’s quarter-hectare farm.

It is not only climate change that concerns breeders; they want also to develop varieties that are disease resistant and relevant to farmers’ other needs – proper milling and cooking quality or flavor, for example. “This is why we have farm trials,” explains Peter Setimela. These trials are done in collaboration with the national research organizations, such as KARI in Kenya. “We look for traits that farmers prefer,” says Setimela, “Farmers in Kenya prefer white maize for making ugali. In Zimbabwe, some people prefer ZM309 because it is sweet when roasted.”

The seed companies and KARI multiply seed to furnish adequate supplies for farmers’ demands, but also depend on farmers they hire to produce that seed. “We work with groups of farmers who have at least five acres (2.5 hectares) per farmer,” says Ngila Kimotho, Managing Director of Dryland Seed Company. The seed company clusters the farmers by sub-location and trains them. This, according to Musa Juma, a contract farmer for Dryland in Kibwezi, Eastern Province, is ‘risk free planting.’” “This is because you are planting for a known market, you don’t have to start worrying about looking for where to sell the produce as you plant,” explains Juma. “An additional perk is that the company provides the seed.”

Seed companies also use local demonstration farms to exhibit the performance of various maize varieties winning over farmers’ to the new varieties they see outperforming traditional ones. Dryland Seed Company also uses vernacular radio programs to disseminate information on the most productive maize varieties. “These are interactive shows and we have farmers calling in to find out what is the best variety to grow when and where to obtain the seed,” explains Kimotho. According to Kimotho, farmers prefer open pollinated varieties as that are early-maturing and drought tolerant and thus better suited for the region’s short rains.

“The basic need in the dry areas is food security,” says Kimotho, adding that farmers only sell surplus seed when they have a rare bumper harvest. To cater for the diversified market, Dryland markets seed in packets from 100 grams to 1 kilogram, so there is an affordable option for every farmer. The 100 gram package is popular with those who are keen to try out new varieties. “Even students buy it for their parents to try,” says Kimotho. Smallholder farmers, most of whom are women, also choose this option to ensure a subsistence maize crop for their families.

By the same token, farmers are reluctant to place all their trust in a single variety. On Mativo’s farm, he spreads the risk by planting hybrids alongside beans and cowpeas. “When the rains are good, the hybrids do well and have high yields, but if the rains are not so good, I still have food from the KDV,” says Mativo. “It would be very sad for a farmer to lack food. When I have food, then my neighbors are also food secure,” he adds. Mativo uses ox drawn ploughs on his farm, but he also occasionally employs a few manual laborers, some of whom he pays in kind with maize grain, at their request.

In the rare years that farmers get a bumper harvest, they need to sell the surplus. But when there is a high supply of maize, the prices are low, and storage becomes an even more vital component of the value chain: the grain requires a pest-free mechanism that also saves the maize from fungal infections, some of which can produce deadly toxins. Working with jua kali artisans, the Catholic Diocese in Embu and South Nyanza, CIMMYT has helped smallholder farmers store up to 20 bags of maize at home in airtight metal silos.

Surplus grain is thus safe until market prices become favorable. “I have enough to feed my family and even some left over that I can save and later sell, when there is a shortage in the market,” says Pamela Akoth, a farmer in South Nyanza. Thanks to the metal silo, Akoth says, she no longer experiences grain losses. In this way, the farmer and the jua kali artisan benefit, as do the young men who are trained in making the metal silos, allowing them to earn a living from the trade.

Ultimately, every participant in this value chain, or relay, is focused on one thing – food security. To ensure that ugali can be served in every household, everyday, everyone in this chain needs to pass the baton and play their part in ensuring that farmers have access to quality seed. This race may be slower but every transition, just like the relay, is as important as the next, with everyone playing an integral role in the process. From the start of the breeding process, to the harvest itself, every part of the ‘race’ is just as important as the photo finish, showing the family enjoying their meal.

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: 08 April 2022; Hits: 13356

Trap cropping: an innovative biological pest control method

Farmers who have struggled to tame pests are recording increased yields and reduced pest infestation on their crops thanks to certain crops like sorghum, napier grass and desmodium among others which are naturally capable of containing pests at minimal or no cost.

The crops known as trap crops have also assisted farmers cut on the cost of pesticides which eats up to 30 percent of all farmers’ expenses. In Marimanti area of Tharaka Nithi farmers have reduced the destruction of maize by stem borers by planting maize alongside sorghum.

"With a perimeter ring of sorghum plants around the maize plots, we have noted less damage from birds and the borers. Birds such as weaver birds prefer the sorghum thereby saving our maize from attack", observes Kagwiria Munyua, a farmer in Kamatungu village.

The farmers have also realised increased yields after surrounding their crops with napier grass as well. Research conducted at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KARLO) ) in Kibwezi has shown that pigeon peas planted along the borderline of an okra plot significantly reduced aphid infestation-increasing yield of the okra crop.

A similar study carried out in Western Kenya also shows that using a trap crop ' of napier grass surrounding maize and an intercrop of the legume desmodium, repelled the insect pests and suppressed a parasitic weed, Striga hermonthica.

The researchers say trap crops concentrate the pest in the border area, reducing numbers of pests and disease spread on the unsprayed cash crop in the centre and preserving natural enemies. Researchers, however, recommend that trap crops such as sorghum should also be harvested and their remains burned or buried deep into the soil as they may act as a pest reservoir in the following season. For instance, the larva stages of stalk borers bore into the stems of sorghum waiting the rainy season for them to transform into adults butterfly and lay eggs on the young maize. Burning the crop residues of sorghum and maize stalks at the end of the season breaks the cycle.

"This technique eliminates the use of broad-spectrum pesticides on the cash crop, which helps preserve natural enemies and helps prevent resurgence of the primary pest population, secondary pest outbreaks and additional spraying. "It results in improved crop quality and dramatic pesticide savings. It reduces the cost of production and improves quality of produce as the amount of chemical residues in the harvest is lowered. It also delays development of pesticide resistance," says the report by Kari.

Beyond the primary role of con-trolling pests, trap crops can be beneficial to farmers. "While we are not very interested in their grain, we still harvest some sorghum, which we can use as porridge flour or use it to feed chicken. The dry sorghum stalks can be used as fodder or fuel wood especially in the cold season in July," noted Munyua as she tends her three-and-half acre price of land.

In the Western Kenya study, re-searchers noted that there was improvement in soil fertility leading to increased maize yields from 39 per cent to 129 per cent. Cattle were also able to obtain fodder from napier and desmodium legumes. Of further importance is the reported suppression of Striga weed by trap crops.

Striga reduces maize and cowpea yields by up to 80 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa, threatening over 100 million people. "Striga currently remains the biggest threat to maize production, particularly in the East Africa region where maize is the staple for millions of inhabitants," said Mel Oluoch, head of the Integrated Striga Management in Africa programme at the International Institute of Research in Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

The weed attaches itself on the root sucking the sap and starving the crop of vital nutrients absorbed from the ground. A combination of a napier grass trap crop and a legume intercrop in a plot of maize has been known to significantly decline the population of Striga weeds ultimately boosting overall yields. Agricultural extensions workers have recommended trap crops to limit the damage to important food crops by pests.

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: 08 April 2022; Hits: 2766

Farmers look to fruit trees for supplementary income

As the market for traditional crops become saturated and diseases ravage traditionally lucrative crops like maize and wheat, farmers keen on maximising their income are turning to fruit farming which has seen them more than triple yields and incomes.

From yellow and purple passion fruits, Red Royale pawpaws, bass avocados and apples, vanguard farmers have found gold mines in these fruits with demand coming from both local and international markets.
In Kenya for example a health conscious middle class with an affinity for spending are driving the demand for fruit farming as are soft drink companies who prefer to buy from farmers rather than import the highly priced fruit pulp.

Among the fruits though, passion fruits- both the yellow and purple varieties are a notch higher in the popularity. "Passion fruits are lucrative and easy to make money from. I have been able to expand my orchard relying mainly from the passion fruits proceeds," said Charles Mureithi, a high school teacher and a fruit farmer in Dimcom village in Sipili, Laikipia district.

Charles Mureithi a farmer in Laikipia is among pioneer farmers in fruit farming with an orchard that has mangoes, avocados, apples, oranges, loquat and cherimoya. The passion fruits however stands out. The over 1200 vines are his cash cow.

“Business is good as far as passion fruits are concerned. Infact i am increasing acreage under cultivation of my passion fruit and have already secured four more acres. A quarter of my household spend is catered for by proceeds from passion fruits sales,” said Mureithi who also teaches Swahili at Lanai Day Secondary School.

When he was testing the project three years ago with only 150 passion trees, he could earn Sh80,000 with a kilo fetching Sh30.

And with the lucrative nature of passion fruit business, a group of seven local farmers have moved and expanded their orchards to meet the rising demand for the fruits from neighbouring towns.

"I have been able to educate three students through high school using passion fruits returns. I can comfortably advise that one may well retire and rely on fruits farming in old age", said a middle aged Joseph Gatama, another of the local farmers. A bishop with a local church, Gatama has 250 passion trees on his three-acre farm. "Every two weeks, we are able to sell Sh2,300 worth of passion fruits and I expected to earn more as the newly established orchard comes to maturation," he said.

He remembers a year he was able to make Sh60, 000- a pricey sum for rural farmers- from sale of passion fruits. Locally the passion fruits have two picking seasons the August November and the April-May-June season. The November season has bigger and more fruit that the May one, according to local farmers. However, with the dry conditions that punctuate the semi-arid Laikipia district, the local fruit farmers have to invest heavily in water systems to cushion their valuable fruits.

"We have to construct underground water tanks to store surface runoff for use as irrigation water. A full tank, of five metres wide by five metres depth is able to sustain the orchard till the rainy season," added Mureithi, who has since constructed such a tank of his flat piece of land. On his part, Gatama-with a similar storage facility on his farm- has purchased a water pump and invested in pipes to ferry water to the plants. "An initial investment of less than Sh100,000 is easily recouped once the harvesting season arrives. We are unable to meet demand for fruit as buyers arrive on our farms seeking fresh ripe fruits," said Mureithi.

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